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Loading ...Besen:Rick Warren’s carnival of confession
The Washington pundits who brought us George W. Bush’s presidency and the Iraq fiasco have reached a consensus that John McCain came across as “more presidential” at mega church pastor Rick Warren’s faith forum.
This conclusion is true if we are still defining “presidential” as a cocksure windbag who bonds with the common people by pandering to the lowest common denominator.On cue, the media judged the candidates by how fun they’d be at a barbecue. McCain was lauded as a “commanding figure” while Obama was derided for coming across as “professorial.” In today’s politics, if you demonstrate your I.Q. your career may be through and a candidate can now admit having smoked marijuana, but not that he has experimented with arugula.
In 2000, the media gave Bush an easy ride because he was affable, but have learned nothing after his presidency turned out to be laughable. We watched Bush strut in his flight suit on an aircraft carrier with a gigantic banner claiming “Mission Accomplished.” When it was clear that the mission had hardly begun, Bush thumped his chest and challenged the insurgents to “bring it on.”
Well, they obliged and now thousands of Americans and tens of thousands of Iraqis are dead.
After nearly eight years of alienating the world with cowboy diplomacy, the media portrays Obama’s tendency to be humble as a political stumble. Meanwhile, McCain talks tough to the Russians as they continue to rush into Georgia.
At the forum, without hesitation he said he is going to defeat evil. But how does he plan to make good on his shallow sound bite with our military tied up in Iraq and our economy on the rocks?
Vladimir Putin has shrugged off the McCain crowd, essentially saying, “You and what army is going to stop us?” McCain must be acting like a galloping stallion because he knows of secret battalions that can be called on to defends the budding democracies in the Caucasus region.
At the forum, McCain also got a big hand by vowing to continue Bush’s policy of ensuring that tycoons can live nearly tax free. Such economic policies combined with Republican deregulation have sold out our country and helped fuel the rise of China – which not only has more gold medals, but owns much of America’s gold. Perhaps McCain remains so bubbly and blissfully unaware of the housing bubble because he has several million-dollar homes. Yet the media still builds him up as the common man ready to storm the gates, even though he has more in common with Bill Gates.
Of course, the enablers of America’s decline are Evangelical Christians who eschew their economic interests in favor of their bizarre moral fetishes. This penchant for the puritanical was exemplified by Warren’s voyeuristic question asking each candidate, “What would be the greatest moral failure in your life.”
Predictably, this carnival of confession and moral spectacle accomplished nothing and failed to reveal any juicy new “sins” that were not already on public record. Fresh from discussing the implosion of his marriage – a huge biblical abomination – McCain spoke out against gay people marrying. In the backdrop of this event was a low level controversy where Jonathan Crutchley, the co-founder of the gay cruising site Man Hunt, gave a $2,300 donation to McCain. This was odd, considering McCain reconfirmed at the forum that he favored Supreme Court judges who had cast votes to outlaw sodomy – the very Man Hunt product that had made Crutchley rich.
Horrified, the other Man Hunt co-founder, Larry Basile, pressured Crutchley to resign as chairman of the company. While Crutchly has been reined in, a new Harris Poll shows that Obama has only 68-percent of the GLBT vote.
Sadly, 2008 is looking much like the last two elections, where a compliant media joins forces with chest thumping evangelicals and closeted homosexuals to further degrade America’s greatness. If McCain is inaugurated, we will all be invited to the barbecue on his million-dollar Arizona ranch, blissfully unaware that our future is the roasting pig with a rotten apple sticking out of its bloated mouth.
Of course, the further we sink into irrelevancy, the more faith forums we will see – even as the rest of the world loses faith in our ability to lead the world. While Rick Warren is an improvement over Focus on the Family’s James Dobson, he must teach evangelicals there is a better way than the selfishness of modern conservatism, or it will go down as his biggest moral failure.
Brad I think that you’re preaching to deaf ears. Many on these boards can not see the obvious when it is right in front of them. Obama can say right in front of millions of people that he feels gays are second class citizens and they do not blink.
The entertaining thing is that McCain could just as easily run as a Democrat as he has as a Republican. The candidates are essentially the same. The difference? You can believe what McCain has to say where Obama it’s simply a guessing game.
Rinaldi: Third time? Just third? The unholy alliance between the evangelicals and blue-blood Republicans has been going on since Reagan.
And Brad Ryden: McCain is as much puppet as Bush. He’s now hired a Rove protege to do exactly the same kind of campaigning — and he’s doing it. He finally has good handlers. Obama has had plenty of hand in the creation of a character of charisma — but McCain has been an opportunist beneficiary of anyone who will take him; Obama worked his a** off to get to where he is. McCain’s daddy and granddaddy got him into naval officer school, where he slumped in at 5th from dead last in his graduating class (sound like someone we all know who got into Yale on the family name and then screwed around?). He’d be nothing if he hadn’t cheated on his first wife with a rich heiress who bankrolled his campaigns for the House and then Senate. I can’t see how anyone who does a little homework on the man could see him as anything but an opportunist, lying, mildly senile fraud who will do and say anything to get power.
I don’t know who is going to win the election, but I’m pretty sure that we’re going to be required to believe that McCain did.
While I am certainly no fan of the religious right or their pundits I am also not a fan of writers like you who use superlatives and fear and utterly false logic to make an argument. McCain might not be perfect but I know he is no Bush/Cheney puppet. As for Obama he is not his own man, he is a creation, a cipher of his own making. He came from nowhere and has no real place to lead this country that is definable. The real American tragedy is that we are left with two to choose from who are less in every category that leads one to make a decision when it comes time to vote. God help us all.
we had KUCINICH, who would have supported GAY MARRIAGE, but we gays were are caught up in the Obama and Hillary hoopla, glitz and glammor. Neither Hillary nor Obama support gay marriage. Kucinich is a tough guy who fear no corporation, no number of GOPers looking to sink him, fears no lies being told about him, tough guy who would say political career be damned, I am about doing the right things for the American people. He had messages of support for the gay people for gay marriage, But he was too radical and too fearless for the media/corporate unholy alliance to tolerate. The media wanted silence him by exclusion, beaause he exposed the collusion between the media, the nuclear power people, the corporations, the war machine, he rocked the boat too much for their comfort and his pro-gay support on top of that.
So America will have do with 2nd best, Obama is all we have now standing in the way of McCain, Obama of the thin US senate experience, no support from him for gay marriage. I will vote for him merely to be another obstacle to a McCain presidency.
I personally don’t like either one, but plan to vote for Obama. American politics has become choosing the lesser of two evils, not the best qualified candidate.
Only the Georgians (Kartvelians)of the land of Georgia (Saqartvelo in their native language)can save themselves from the Russians. Even it means the Russians “ethnically cleanse” them. Georgians are peacefully rallying against the Russian occupation and the world knows of the Russian criminal acts, blowing up Georgian railway bridges, cities and villages looted and burned, and now Russian
firebombs burning a national forest park in Georgia. The Georgians have a wine-growing culture dating from the time of the ancient Greeks, one of the oldest such in Europe. Their country was beautiful with anciant historical buildings, snow-topped mountains. A land with complicated polyphonic singing and old traditional musical instruments and unique national costumes. A land of handsome Meditarrean-looking men and beautiful women, and an amazing Meditarrean style cuisine that ia very unique to their land using fruit, vegetables, walnuts, pomegranates, herbs and cheese in their food. Some of it similar to Persian, Turkish, Greek, Armenian cuisine but also like no other.
This is a land of song, music, poetry (Shota Rustaveli being their best known national poet in the old traditions) known to the ancient Greeks as in Jason and the Golden Fleece and as the land called Colchis centuries ago.
The Georgians have a national spirit and an awareness of their centuries old culture. Fortunately, neighboring Turkey and other countries like the USA have expressed an intention of helping to rebuild Georgian infrastructure.
The Georgians are a US ally with a pro-Western and pro-American president. It is sickening that the USA is not able to do more to help them and that the Russians are free to paralyze the country and to keep it in a state of great fear. The Georgians have a
determination to get back on their own feet and to keep telling the Russian occupiers that they need to leave.
Besen, your editorials always tell it like it is:
“Of course, the enablers of America’s decline are Evangelical Christians who eschew their economic interests in favor of their bizarre moral fetishes. This penchant for the puritanical was exemplified by Warren’s voyeuristic question asking each candidate, “What would be the greatest moral failure in your life.”
Yes indeed “bizarre moral fetishes”!
However, if it is, a repeat of the last two elections, the vast majority of underpaid walmart class workers who vote republican will also suffer. The irony in this story is that they are mostly evangelicals and vote against their own personal interests after a lie.
Maybe by the third time of being screwed while being asleep they may wake up, but you know how it is; make a mistake once and you learn, make the same mistake twice and you are stupid, make the same mistake three times and… What comes after stupid?
We continue to support candidates who do not support same-sex marriage for one reason: We have no choice.
A serious candidate has not taken the bold step to uphold fairness and equality. Once this barrier is broken we can demand it from all candidates that we support.
I think in the next four to eight years – as polls inch up – we will finally have a democratic presidential contender support marriage.
So why support Obama? The Supreme Court. If McCain gets elected the Supreme Court will go super conservative and possibly affect marriage equality in the long run, far more than whoever wins the White House.
The other reason is that McCain has made a strategic decision to pander to the Religious Right. Thus, he will owe them if he gets elected.
And, let’s not forget a host of other issues: the war, choice, the economy…
It is crucial, in my view, that we elect Obama. He is not perfect, but he is much better than McCain, who will continue Bush’s policies and continue America on a downward spiral.
Kudos, Wayne, for another insightful article. The thing that I simply can’t wrap my head around is why there was ever a “faith forum” in the first place. In a country where church and state are required by law to be separate there should be no need to pander to those who would have our state submit to church law. This is just the latest glaring example of why if it talks like a PAC, and walks like a PAC, it should be TAXED like a PAC and held accountable to the same rules. On the bright side, this also gives me yet another valid reason to support my theory that not all people should be allowed to vote. Too many people are pushing the intelligence envelope to walk and breathe at the same time, much less decide the criteria on who will lead this country. I suppose we can take comfort in the fact that the Presidency is not filled by popular vote in the first place.
Very nice article. When did having brains and intellectual curiosity become a liability?
And why?
Jeremy – yes, we would all like the ideal candidate, but there are political realities to be dealt with. Having an ideal candidate that loses does nobody any good. Having someone who we agree with on most, if not all, of the issues is the best we have at the moment and that person is Obama. McCain is proving that he truly is just Bush 3.0 and if this country is so stupid as to elect this man President – we truly deserve what happens to us as a result. I’m holding out hope that we are more intelligent that that, but after the 2004 election – I’m not holding my breath either.
Nicely stated Wayne. Yes, the American public does have a short term memory problem. Perhaps they don’t have the time to dwell upon politics because they are too busy paying record breaking gas prices, trying to afford their children’s education, paying off medical bills etc. – all areas of American life that have gotten far worse these past 8 years. Will tehy remember? Of course not. As long as they can snuggle up to Bill O’Reilly who will help them feel smuggly superior to those “liberals” they’ll go on voting as before. As long as they go their pastor or “reverend” or whomever to console them that yes, they are someohow special or “chosen” in some way and that everything will be just fine (pass the collectin plate please) – they will stay the same. The American public has become a soundbite nation and the media its willing enabler. So few people actually ever seem to research the issues they pontificate, or at least emote about. They are passionate – but intelligent? After Heir Bush was handed the 2000 election by the Supreme Court and the abyssmal failure he proved to be almost immediately – getting him out at first chance would be a no brainer. Instead, the “religious” among us, you know – the ones with the God head trip, desperately needing to feeling morally superior to others – allowed such issues as “gay marriage” to motivate them to go vote yet again for Bush 2.0 again. (Because we all know, heterosexuals have done such a bang up job with marriage themselves – as McSame proves). Now, when a clearly better candidate such as Obama comes along, the fact that he is not far ahead in the national polls speaks once again to America’s weakness. Are they relaly that ignorant? or racist? or arrogant? Although it was nice that the Democrats won seats in 2006 – they did not win enough to prevent filibusters or presidential vetoes – so there power was largely symbolic. While Rick Warren might appear better on the surface than James Dobson – he comes across as just a slicker wold in sheeps clothing. Anyone who believes that the Bible, a masterpiece of storytelling is the literal “word of God” is not someone whose judgment I could n clear conscious defer to – no matter how amiable he may appear. A more agreeable nutjob is still a nutjob.
Well said! I find it ironic that the very people who pride themselves as being the “saviors of our country” are the very cause of its downfall. Here’s to hoping that our next president will keep their personal religions to themselves and not force them down our throats.
While Obama would clearly be better for us than McCain – why do we continue to support democratic candidates like Obama who still don’t believe we have the right to get married? When asked at the forum about marriage, he brought out that he supports the seperate but unequal civil union system – once again, another disapointment from a democratic nominee. When are we ever going to have a candidate who is truly and totally for us?